Chả lụa (Vietnamese Steamed Pork Sausage) Recipe

Chả lụa is one of the main meats used when making Saigon style Bánh mì sandwiches. This sausage is also sliced and eaten with bánh cuốn, or xôi, or braised in fish sauce and black pepper and added to other meat dishes. When fried, it is called chả chiên.

I’ve read that the way to tell if the sausage is cooked well is to drop the roll onto a hard surface and if it bounces it’s done right. 🙂 I however will not vouch for this highly scientific test.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs boneless pork loin, cubed

2 eggs, Beaten

1/2 cup wood ear mushrooms, finely chopped (optional)

1 1/2 tsp sugar

3 shallots, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, sliced

3 tbsp cooking oil

2 tbsp fish sauce (Nước chấm)

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 tbsp black pepper

aluminum foil and water for steaming

Method:

Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, saute shallots and garlic until soft.

Add mushrooms and pepper. Cook, stirring until mushrooms are softened. Place in a medium bowl and cool.

In a small bowl add eggs, sugar and fish sauce, combine well and pour over pork.

In a food processor add pork and cooked mixtures. chop to a very smooth paste, adding the cornstarch to bind it.

Brush an 8 x 12 inch sheet of aluminum foil with oil, place the filling in the center and roll tightly into a long barrel shape. Tightly fold in the ends. (you do not want water to enter the roll while cooking or it is ruined)

Hi Gina, sorry for the lack of clarity. In step 4 you mix those ingredients first then add to the meat that has been put in a bowl to cool. You then process the mixture. I’ve updated the recipe to reflect this.

I am glad to come across your website here. I have been looking for this recipe for ages. Here in Indonesia, it’s difficult to find oriental preprocessed food or deli not to mention the price and even harder for pork content.

I love this vietnamese pork roll, used to have it every morning in Sydney for $3.00. I browsed and it has gone up to $6.50 but slightly bigger.

So I am really thrilled to try you recipe although I will need to adjust some ingredients and see what I can find in here.
I would like to know if you also have the recipe for the other meat (the red one) besides cha lua. I think there are two or three pork slices in it.

Thanks a lot for this, hope you could help. Got nowhere alse to go =)
Widya

Gald I could help Widya.
I’m not sure what other Vietnamese sausage you are reffering to. If you can give me more info I’m sure I can locate the recipe for you.
dồi huyết is blood sausage from Vietnam, is this it?

Widya meant the other two meats found in a plain “pork roll”. You get a red meat (nem chua – sour meat), white one (cha lua) and one that looks like pork with red fat around it. I don’t think the third one is a sausage.

Yeah what Egin said is exactly what I meant. I just don’t know the names but I managed to find the recipe for those from a really really good website. Hope you guys could check it out yourself but perhaps you aready know this site.http://www.theravenouscouple.com

I followed the directions except I used Shitaki mushrooms as I could not find wood ear. I also used a 3.5 inch collagen sausage casing instead of foid and I steamed for an hour. The roll came out soft and mushy and was not firm. What did I do wrong?

It seems that there was either too much moisture in the mix or the sausage did not cook properly. The texture should be “rubbery”. I’ve not had this issue myself. I’d hoped this was a bullet-proof recipe. I’m sorry that since I’ve never encountered this I cannot offer you a simple reason for it turning out that way. I’ll ask around and see if I can find you and answer.